Author: FishleysBlog

We are intersted in how well our house will live up to the predications in the passivhaus spreadsheets. How much will the temperature fluctuate? Will we overheat? How much solar will we produce?
To answer these questions Mike has put various temperature and humidity sensors around the house, including the ktichen floor and concrete wall. They are based on Raspberry Pi and feed into the Open Energy Monitor Project. There are a multitude of ways to look at the results, but here are a few that I have chosen.The current temperature is an easy way to work out whether to open the windows in summer.Here I have reduced the scale so that I can look over the last six months in one window.And finally here are the results merged together so that you can see how the house temperature compare to the external temperature.

We have been living in our new home for a while now, but I realise that I never posted some photos of what the finished house looks like inside. So down-stairs we have the kitchen
and living room
with access through the library to the downstairs study/bedroom.
Upstairs the landing bookcase is a good home for plants
as is the bathroom.

Over the last couple of weeks, the groundworks team have leveled the back “lawn” and finished the drive. The drive has settled in well with the woodland with a covering of autumn leaves. Meanwhile, we have contributed by painting 3 sides of the garage, but are waiting for some more paint to finish it of.

I thought it was time for a photographic walk round the outside. So through the gate and pass the garage on the rightup to the front door.Around the East face and around to the south.

Apart from some site tidying up and a couple of minor tweaks, we are now finished and plan to move in on the 7th November. So a big thank you to every-one in Mike’s team and to all the other people who have made our dream house possible.

The groundworks team have been here this week and started off with moving the Liquidambar and the Persian Ironwood trees. Work has been carefully taking place around them for the last year, but they were too close to the house to remain where they were. We had hoped to move them last winter, but by the time the leaves came off the surrounding area was a totally quagmire. As the plan was to smooth the earth outside the house this week, it was time for the them to go, even though it is a bit early in the year.
First to be moved was the taller Liquidambar, which came out of the ground with a neat block of earth and no cutting of big roots. Before being gently lowered into place in the new orchard.
Next was the Persian Ironwood. This proved to have shallower roots and unfortunately several largish roots had to be cut. However hopefully it will settle in.

As we come to the end of time with Mike and his team, we thought you would like some up-to-date photos of the house. Starting with the front entrance.
the kitchen with its worktop
Followed by a view of the internal wall of the “pod” with the library shelves
and finally a view of the landing with the glass balustrade panels which were put in last week.

Looking back over the photos in the blog, I realise that some views are missing. Now the scaffolding is down from around the pod, you can get a good idea of how the pod sits in relation to the house.
The garage cladding is complete.
And inside the house the painting covers have been removed so that you can see the oak corner seat which will house our CDs and DVDs and the upstairs bathroom.

Whilst we were on holiday the second air test was performed on the house. This came back with the extremely impressive figure of 0.13 ach ( air changes per hour), which is well within the passivhaus requirements of 0.6 ach. In fact this is the lowest that Mike and his team has achieved and is even more impressive given the house is not a single rectangular unit. This would not have been possible without the attention to detail by the whole team – so a big Thank You and congratulations to the team.

Outside, the garage now has its windows and the cladding is progressing. Inside the house, all the rooms have now had a couple of coats of paint, but as the floors are still covered up we have yet to see the full impact. However we have seen the shower room floor uncovered for the first time, which is a black limestone with the surplus tiles cut to produce a very neat skirting. The photo is of the basin on its birch stand.The plumbers and electricians have also been back to do some commissioning, including testing the heating system for the first time.
The builders have recently see the need for the intricate insect mesh that was installed behind the wood cladding, as a swarm of wasps decided to make a home about 2m inside their long work bench in the photo. Not that I am a great one for killing wildlife, this was a case for Pestkill.
Most things have gone smoothly with this build, except we have had a couple of teething problems this week. The shower-room light came with a diffracter that gives alternating dark and light bands around the room and a white garage door was delivered instead of the grey that was ordered.

Another busy week with lots of people on site including painters, plasterers and plumbers. Work on cladding the garage has continued, along with finishing touches on the outside of the house. The pod roof has its balustrade and the concrete for the porch floor has been laid. The pod has been painted black so you can see the striking effect of the red front door against the black paint – no missing which door is the front one.
Inside the oak ledged doors have been hung, continuing our mix of modern and traditional.And don’t you just love the latches from Hollow Ash